Part I. The Development of an Atlantic Creole Culture in Western Africa, c.1300–1500: 1. Culture, trade, and diaspora in pre-Atlantic West Africa; 2. The formation of early Atlantic societies in Senegambia and Upper Guinea; 3. The settlement of Cabo Verde and early signs of Creolization in Western Africa; 4. The new Christian diaspora in Cabo Verde and the rise of a Creole culture in Western Africa; 5. The new Christian/Kassanké alliance and the consolidation of Creolization; Part II. Creolization and Slavery: Western Africa and the Pan-Atlantic, c.1492–1589: 6. The early trans-Atlantic slave trade from Western Africa; 7. Trading ideas and trading people: the boom in the contraband trade from Western Africa, c.1550–80; 8. Cycles of war and trade in the African Atlantic, c.1550–80; 9. Creole societies and the pan-Atlantic in late sixteenth-century Western Africa and America; Part III. Conclusion: 10. Lineages, societies, and the slave trade in Western Africa to 1589.
Toby Green describes the rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the aftermath of the Spanish conquest.
Toby Green is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at King's College London. He has published several books, the most recent of which is Inquisition: The Reign of Fear (2009). His books have been translated into ten languages. He is a director of the Amilcar Cabral Institute for Economic and Political Research. His articles have appeared in History in Africa, the Journal of Atlantic Studies, Journal of Mande Studies and Slavery and Abolition. Green has also written widely for the British press, including book reviews for the Independent and features for Financial Times, the Observer and the Times. He has given lectures at various institutes, including the Universities of Cambridge, Lisbon, Oxford and Paris-Sorbonne; Duke University and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
'Many current scholars lay claim to a transnational and
cross-cultural 'Atlantic' history but very few have brought
together the detail, scope, and vision of Toby Green. This
remarkable book, focusing on Cabo Verde, Senegambia, and Upper
Guinea, reveals how Iberian imperial authorities, a New
Christian/Crypto-Jewish diaspora, and African economic and
political agents combined to produce a wide-ranging early modern
order of commerce and cultural identity around the violence of the
slave trade.' Ralph Austen, University of Chicago
'… original and thoroughly researched … Green recasts our
understanding of the early years of Africa's engagement with
Atlantic merchants. He 'Africanizes' Atlantic history by showing
that a cultural framework established in Africa before the
Portuguese 'discoveries' … influenced the nature of
African-European exchanges for more than a century … Green crafts a
'culturally centered approach', which stands in contrast to
quantitative approaches popular in much recent scholarship. He also
shows that a widely held view that a region known as Upper Guinea
was relatively unimportant in the early years of Atlantic exchange
is incorrect … Well written and well argued, Green's is a story
that had to be told.' Walter Hawthorne, Michigan State University,
and author of From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an
Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1830
'Green's book is learned and wide-ranging. It is also deeply humane
and marked by an imaginative empathy of rare quality. The result is
one of the best and most rewarding works I have read on the
trans-Atlantic slave trade. This is a major contribution to West
African and Atlantic history and marks Green as a scholar to
watch.' T. C. McCaskie, School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London
'This book offers a real window [into] the history of the diversity
of West African societies before the seventeenth century. The
protagonists are slaves, women, Jews, Mestizos, Capeverdeans and
African merchants - all of whom contributed to new identities. The
space of reflection opened by T. Green is rich in ways of thinking
about the formation of West African societies, the first Atlantic
exchanges and the configuration of new identities in American
space.' António de Almeida Mendes, translated from Annales:
Histoire, Sciences Sociales
'This book is a transnational history par excellence, with multiple
places, communities, regions, peoples, cultures, identities, and
overlapping agendas in simultaneous dialogues. It is written with
reflection, compassion, and good judgement. Green tackles the
complications, the beauty, and the ugliness of the human condition
without making excuses for the actions of men whose deeds,
travails, and pragmatism gave birth to and sustained the
transatlantic slave trade for more than 400 years.' Akin Ogundiran,
English Historical Review
'Green's book is a welcome and valuable contribution to Atlantic
history and fills a lacuna with regard to the early period of its
evolution. It will no doubt enliven and encourage the debate on
West Africa's position in the trans-Atlantic context and on the
agency of different social groups in the making of Afro-Atlantic
cultures based on the ignominious trade in humans.' Philip Jan
Havik, Journal of African History
'[This book] makes a significant contribution to historical
understanding of the beginnings of European trade in Africa and
places the Cape Verde islands in their rightful place at the centre
of this important story. It will interest scholars of the Atlantic
World and a general audience interested in European expansion and
maritime trade.' Journal of World History
'A study of an impressive wealth of material.' translated from
Cahiers des Etudes Africaines
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